"Once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to the meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time." -Donald Miller

Comida Dominicana

I served a mission for my church in the Dominican Republic and I lived there for two years. It was a great (and hard) two years. I lived in cinderblock, tin roof houses, and I ate as the Dominicans ate. Lunch was the big meal of the day and we would have rice and beans almost every day.

If you didn’t have rice and beans for lunch you might have rice with some other vegetable mixed in, or if you were really lucky rice with some chicken. For dinner you might have rice and eggs, fried plantains and eggs, or maybe some bread and hot chocolate.

Now the food wasn’t amazing but if I had to eat one thing every day, I would probably go back to rice and beans. It’s bland enough that you don’t get sick of it, and still has some nutrition and calories. My kids didn’t love the food but they enjoyed hanging out with their cousins.

I couldn’t find good Dominican food in Utah but as we travel further East I have started to see a few more choices. My friend Nathan (Marisa’s cousin) lived in the Dominican Republic as well so he and his wife Mandy took me to a great Dominican Food place in Orlando, Florida, called Tu Casa.

My favorite dish was the Moro de Guandules which is just seasoned rice with pigeon peas mixed in. We also had arroz y habichuela (rice and beans), tostones (fried green plantains), platanos maduros (ripe plantains), chicharrones (fried pork rinds), chicken, and tripe (intestine.) It was all very authentic. I would eat here once a week if it was in my neighborhood.